Dear Mayor Wilson, City Councilors, and Administrator Jordan,
We welcome the new Portland City Government and look forward to working with you.
We write to you about public concerns related to Zenith Energy’s existing and proposed operations. We are relieved to see the interest from many members of the new government in addressing the health and safety concerns associated with the Critical Energy Infrastructure (CEI) Hub. Since the 2022 back room deal with Zenith Energy, the City of Portland has collaborated with this polluting fossil fuel company. There has been no opportunity for public involvement or oversight while Zenith has misled the community and committed violations of city and state policies.
The 2022 conditional LUCS has many unsubstantiated assertions, misinformation, and contradictions that would not have survived public or legal scrutiny if the public were allowed to present information into the record, which, as public records revealed, was intentionally denied. Zenith’s unenforceable promises to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through renewables are scientifically indefensible given the complexities of carbon intensities and life cycle factors. Their claims serve only to allow Zenith to continue to expand its fossil fuel throughput which runs directly contrary to Comprehensive Plan 6.48, limiting fossil fuels to those necessary to serve the regional market. Zenith’s “renewable fuel” operations do not magically bring its expanding fossil fuel operations into harmony with the Comprehensive Plan. Plus, many safeguards involving renewable fuels also need to be put in place. Section 7.24 of the Comprehensive Plan sets out a regulatory hierarchy against potential adverse impacts of new development on significant natural resources and their function and references multiple Land Use plans based on scientific evidence and factual findings that may be compromised by Zenith’s operations. The city could have and still can utilize many defensible reasons to adequately defend denying this LUCS, not the least of which is Zenith’s continued violations and dishonesty. However, city staff appear to have a strong bias in favor of protecting Zenith from open public scrutiny.
New reporting from Street Roots shows that city officials have again not been transparent with the public about Zenith’s plans to establish a new use — fuel blending -on site. Zenith is trying to sneak this new use into the LUCS it is seeking from the city. This is the revised LUCS that DEQ has recently required based on Zenith’s illegal construction on and use of the McCall dock. These and other violations have not been simple clerical errors but serious and continuous violations of local and state laws. This has been coupled with deliberate obfuscation and attempts at preventing public accountability and oversight through greenwashing, outright misrepresentation, and the withholding of information from public view.
Did any city staff know about the illegal construction and use while it was happening? If so, why has it not been disclosed to the public or found on any decision of record? If the city didn’t know about the illegal construction, how could Zenith be awarded new permissions after the company flagrantly broke the law and provided misleading statements on multiple occasions?
The public has never been given a satisfactory official response for the backroom deal with Zenith Energy in 2022. Even after the City Auditor’s interviews with city officials, including Donnie Oliveira, found that communications in the 2022 LUCS process “went beyond what they considered the standard process” and directly contradicted what officials told the public, neither the prior City Council nor any other public body investigated further. Many of the same officials who participated in that process are central to city decision making over the upcoming LUCS decision. Some were promoted within the city bureaucracy. These officials are compromised on this issue by virtue of their past acts and disregard for calls from community members to hold Zenith accountable. The City Attorney erred in refusing to defend the denied 2021 LUCS with adequate Comprehensive Plan findings and instead advised city officials to approve a negotiated, conditional LUCS after Zenith’s unreported lobbying.
This is an opportunity to end secretive deals with a polluting operation and ensure public safety and alignment with City land use plans and values. City officials have endangered Portland by allowing Zenith to continue moving oil trains through our neighborhoods and storing ever-increasing quantities of hazardous liquid fuels in an earthquake liquefaction zone. We call on you to correct these past mistakes and move forward for our city. Mayor-Elect Wilson and six new Council members have expressed general agreement or signed onto the CEI Hub platform. This conscientious concern for public safety does not align with the granting of a LUCS for Zenith.
To Mayor Wilson: We are concerned that administrative staff are narrowly interpreting code and ignoring judicial decisions to rush through a LUCS decision. We need your leadership here. Knowing that you care about this issue, please refuse to grant a new LUCS to Zenith and, instead, withdraw Zenith’s existing LUCSs and land use permissions as state law allows you to. Ensure that Zenith’s record and operations are assessed in their entirety with a deliberative, robust, and public process. Portlanders deserve public oversight, community involvement, and accountability.
To the new City Councilors: As it appears that city staff may try to exclude you from decision-making over Zenith’s upcoming LUCS, you must ensure accountability and oversight for past city actions by conducting a thorough public oversight hearing. We need full information about and accountability for city involvement in Zenith’s multiple legal violations and assurances that this pattern of behavior will not continue forward.
We count on you to turn the page towards an open, transparent process. Stand with the people in our community and hold Zenith accountable. A transparent, responsive, inclusive, and courageous city government is what voters expect from the results of this past election.
Sincerely,
(The first two groups were unable to go through a full approval process due to proximity to the holidays, but leaders signed on.)
Patricia Kullberg M.D. and Ann Turner M.D., members of Physicians for Social Responsibility
Walter Shriner PhD, Melanie Plaut MD, Mary King PhD Professor of Economics, PSU, Darise Weller; members of Risk Bond Coalition
Nancy Hiser for Tank the Tanks
Cassie Cohen for Portland Harbor Community Coalition
Jacob Apenes for Sunrise Movement Portland Chapter
John Giacoppe for Democratic Socialists of America, Portland Chapter
Diana Meisenhelter for Extinction Rebellion PDX
Lynn Spitaleri-Handlin for Cascadia Magical Activists
Harlan Shober for PEST LLC (Portland Equipment and Supply Team)
